The Asylum
by Coletta
Summary: Kidnapped and imprisoned without explanation, Integra, Seras and Alucard must find each other and escape before the Asylum destroys them.
1. Seperated

Alucard's screams made Integra's hair stand on end.

Silence enveloped the pitch-dark cell. There were no windows or bars to let in light, just stone walls, briefly glimpsed when their hoods were removed and they were shoved head-long inside. The heavy door had sealed behind them, and Integra and Seras saw no more of their mysterious captors, or Alucard. He had been separated from them immediately, transported in some other armored vehicle. While Integra had not seen her servant for many hours, she had heard him, heard his snarling, taunting and swearing in turn. But now, she heard nothing.

Neither Integra nor Seras dared speak, listening intently for further signs of life from Alucard.

Seras held herself in misery. "What do you supposed they're _doing_ to him?"

Integra couldn't imagine. At the same time, she imagined everything.

Whoever "they" were, they had been skilled. And prepared. In her heart of hearts, Integra had a sinking feeling her mysterious enemies were not vampires or the Iscariots or any of the usual suspects-but her own government. When she had been seized in her own bed and wrestled to the ground by a dozen masked soldiers and had a hood shoved over her head, her first thought was someone was staging a coup. But she had not been afraid. Alucard would let the fools get to the front door, let them believe their plan was on the verge of success, then reveal himself and _liquefy_ the traitors. But that's not what happened at all. Once dragged into the hallway and pulled by her bound legs down the stairs, she could _hear_ Alucard's enraged screaming, not his familiar mischievous cackle. And once on the first floor, she was dragged along the marble floors and felt her clothes soak up something wet on the floor. Blood, no doubt, from her own slain guards.

She knew immediately that if Alucard had been in any position to save her, he would have already. So she did the only thing she could think of, and called to him to let him know she was alive: "Alucard, are you okay?" After all, she was hooded, bound and covered in blood-for all he knew, she was a corpse.

She couldn't image what position he must be in, or what weapons they had used against him. But she didn't have time to wonder as she was yanked to her feet and marched outside and shoved into a vehicle-where Seras Victoria was waiting, bound and helpless as well.

Hours later, they were here, at this unidentifiable dungeon with no explanation. No lording villain to gloat over them and reveal his insidious plan. No envious traitor to murder them outright. No one at all.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

To be continued….


	2. Reunited

Integra paced through the darkness and counted the amount of steps it took to reach each corner. She lifted her bound hands and felt the rough stone she could not see and tried to imagine what it looked like, and if she had ever seen that kind of foundation in any building in London.

"Do you think Walter is dead, Ma'am?" Seras whimpered.

"I don't know," Integra answered dispassionately, though her own thoughts echoed the sentiment.

"If he were okay, he wouldn't have let this happen."

"We know Alucard is alive," Integra said, "but he wasn't able to help us. You can't allow yourself to assume the worst."

Integra heard Seras sniffle. "How do you know Alucard is still alive?"

With that, Integra froze. "Can't you sense the presence of your master?"

"No. I can't sense anything through the walls."

Integra breathed deeply. That didn't mean anything, other than that Seras was weak and her powers were inferior and she shouldn't be at all surprised she couldn't sense anything through the walls. Or, that her captors had some knowledge of vampires and had simply blessed the cells. "They can't kill Alucard," Integra declared. "They have no idea how. They may try and torture him for a few hours, and he'll just laugh at them. Or he'll play dead. He loves that trick. Just sit tight and wait. He'll come."

"I can't sit still," Seras complained. "I can imagine something terrible is happening to my master _right now_. He's so poweful. How could they have…? How? _How?_ He should have killed them on the spot!"

"I have no answers for you," Integra said coolly. "All I know is that enemies have had the upper hand before, but never for long. Alucard will get his bearings, and emerge victorious."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Indeed, Alucard did emerge, but not victorious.

The doors of the cell opened and the room flooded with white, blinding light. Seras and Integra cried out and shielded their faces with their bound hands, but they weren't attacked. Instead, they head a dull 'thud' and the cell doors were shut once more.

Integra lowered her hands and blinked blindly. "What was that? What changed?"

"Master!" Seras cried in horror. "Master, what have they done to you?"

Integra reached out with her hands. "It's Alucard? You can see him?"

"Yes. He's hurt." With her vampire eyes, Seras could see Alucard's nude, prone body collapsed face-down on the floor. She went to him and rolled him over to his back and she blushed furiously at his nakedness. She turned away in crippling shyness. "Oh, master…"

"What's wrong?" Integra demanded, finding Seras with her hands.

"Master's _naked_."

"Oh for _God's sake_," Integra scoffed, pushing Seras aside and kneeling down and gingerly feeling for Alucard's body. She hoped Seras could not see her own burning red cheeks, especially when she identified Alucard's knee and she flinched from it, not wanting to glide her hands up his body from there. In a moment, she had found his broad, bare shoulders and gave him a shake. "Alucard," Integra said, "Alucard!"

The vampire did not stirr.

"How is he hurt?" Integra asked. "Has he been shot?"

"I don't see any open wounds," Seras said, peeking. "He's got some pretty nasty bruises on his wrists and around his neck."

Integra frowned. "He shouldn't have bruises. He should regenerate such superficial injuries immediately."

"Well, I don't know!" Seras said defensively. "I can only tell you what I see!"

"Help me sit him up," Integra said, tucking her arm under Alucard's neck and trying to nudge him into a sitting position. Seras took Alucard's wrists in her hands and pulled him up. Once he was sitting, Integra knelt behind him and let the unconscious vampire lean against her. His head lolled back against her shoulder, his eyes closed and jaw relaxed.

"What are you going to do?" Seras asked.

"Wake him up, hopefully," Integra said through clenched teeth. The vampire was heavy. She placed her finger tip in between Alucard's lips and rubbed it against his sharp fang. She sawed it into her skin until she felt her flesh split open and blood pulsate into his cold, wet mouth.


	3. Fever

"He's not waking up!" Seras cried in disbelief.

Integra withdrew her bloody finger in shock. Her virginal life-blood was Alucard's most coveted drug. He could smell her skinned knee from across the mansion and six floors up and be at her side within a millisecond in the hopes of finding a droplet of red smeared on the floor. She had been certain the smell alone would rouse him. But Alucard remained unconscious in her arms.

Integra nudged her vampire nervously. "Alucard?"

Seras burst into controllable sobbing. "He's dead. He's dead."

Integra couldn't see Seras, but she glared daggers at the draculina anyway. "He's not dead, you _fool_."

"How would you know?" Seras asked accusingly. "He doesn't have a pulse either way."

Integra scoffed; "He's _never_ had a pulse." Alucard's arms were cold. Even though Integra knew Alucard's vampiric body temperature was always cool, she felt the need to start rubbing his arms, though her bound hands made that awkward. "He may just be drugged. Perhaps that's how he was captured in the first place." Her bloody finger ached. She lifted it in the air. "Seras, may I ask a favor…?"

Without warning, Integra felt Sera's needley mouth descend on her digit. The girl sucked furiously and lapped with her tongue. Her hands wrapped possessively around Integra's wrist, as if she were afraid her treat would be taken away.

Integra was stunned.

"Mmmm," Seras moaned happily. After a moment, she released Integra's healed finger with an audible 'pop!' and a contented sigh. "Thank you, ma'am," Seras purred, "That hit the spot. I feel much calmer now."

"I'm glad to offer the relief," Integra said uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry," Seras sighed, "It's just that it's been a few hours." The young draculina stood up, energized and walked to the door of the cell and pressed her ear against it. "No one," she said.

"You can't hear anything?"

"I can hear fine. I can hear some kind of a motor running, and I can hear hollow dripping noises-like someone didn't turn off the sink all the way somewhere. But I don't hear any people. No foot steps or voices."

"Any other prisoners? Walter?"

Seras shrugged. "I don't hear anyone."

Integra squeezed her slumbering vampire pet. "Why did they reunite us?" She wasn't really asking Seras, she was asking Alucard. "They must be very confident that we wont be able to escape."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Hours later, Integra nervously rocked her vampire. "He's burning."

Seras knelt down before her undead master and pressed her cool cheek against his hot, clammy brow.

"Even by human standards," Integra said, "he's too hot. He's sweating."

"At least we know he's alive," Seras offered. "How can we cool him down?"

"Switch places with me," Integra said, struggling to left her bound arms over Alucard's head. "Let him lean against you. Your internal body temperature should be much colder than mine, maybe it will help."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Eventually, Alucard started making uncomfortable noises in his sleep and his eyelids began to flutter as he struggled to wake. But his body remained hot. His hair was damp. He shivered.

"Its like he has a fever, but he can't get sick," Seras said, nuzzling her cool face into his neck, stroking his chest. "Have you ever seen master sick?"

Integra sat in helpless silence, listening to Alucard's soft grunts and sighs.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"It hurts," was Alucard's first coherent sentence.

He had been stringing together sounds and eventually some words, but this was the first sign he really was awake.

Relieved, Integra reached out into the darkness and found his body and used her pajama sleeve to wipe the sweat from his face. "Alucard, Seras and I are with you."

Seras squeezed her master. "Master, can you hear us?"

"It hurts. It hurts." He writhed in Seras's embrace. "Run."


	4. Attack

He lapsed in and out of consciousness. Everytime Alucard's eyes fluttered opened, he began to ramble in a delusional panic. But he only had enough energy for that to last a minute or so before his eyes rolled up into the back of his skull and he stilled once again.

Seras cradled him in her lap and Integra stared at nothing in the dark, obsessed with the ancient vampire's shallow breathing. He should not breathe at all.

Escape seemed impossible now. There was no way they could muscle their way through untold armed guards with Alucard incapacitated. Any attempt to escape meant abandoning him. Agreeing to cooperate or negotiate was paramount to surrender. But splitting up was suicide.

And honorable.

With resolve, Integra lifted her head and decided to say just what she had been thinking: "Escape by any means necessary."

Seras looked up from her master. "What?"

"I want you to regroup with any surviving members of Hellsing and stage an assault and take vengeance on as many as you can. I'll remain here with Alucard, to whatever end."

Seras was aghast. "I can't leave you and master! Don't you think they'll kill you in retribution?"

In the darkness, Integra reached out and squeezed her servant's limp hand. Alucard had fallen back into unconsciousness. "If they plan on killing us, their cold hearts won't be moved by our voluntary surrender. And if they're going to go through the effort of keeping us alive because we're some vital part of their scheme, your escape won't alter their goals. Besides, someone should remain with Alucard, and your supernatural powers give you the greater advantage and better odds of escape." Integra smirked. "I _order_ you to abandon us."

Seras lowered her head. "I can't. I just _can't_."

"Don't be cowardly!" Integra hissed. "Think of Alucard if you need to summon strength. Understand that without intervention, he is as good as dead. His only chance is if you bring help."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The unseen enemy returned just as Integra couldn't stand the hunger any longer.

They came just as they had the first time; without warning and in a barrage of blinding light. Before Seras or Integra could jump to their feet and make a stand, swarms of men descended upon the room and Integra found herself restrained and forced to the floor, a boot crushing her neck. "Gutless bastards!" Integra spat. "Who are you?"

Seras backed up into a corner, her eyes wide and gleaming from the horror and hate. As the first man reached out to seize her, Seras's lips pulled back, revealing rows of sharp teeth, and she expelled an unnatural hiss. It was their only warning.

The cell erupted in panic as Seras sank her teeth into the approaching man's hand and promptly bit it off. But the other men descended immediately upon her rather than backing away. They had come prepared to battle it out with a vampire.

Integra had only eyes for Alucard. In the sudden surge of light, she could see his naked and bruised body at last. Horrified, she saw the deep plum and black bruises dappling his skin, just as Seras had described. Faceless men swarm around the old vampire, seizing him by his wrists and ankles and dragging him away.

As he slid by, his eyes rolled open and he focused on Integra. "Integra."

Integra's arm desperatly snaked out from the mens' grasps and she struggled to grab Alucard's hand, but missed it by inches. "Alucard!" she shouted as he was pulled away.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The hood was pulled from Integra's head.

She gasped and wheezed. They had wrapped her neck in duct tape once the hood was secure, and she had passed out once or twice from insufficient oxygen. As she sat, breathless and dizzy, trying to get her bearings, she knew she was sitting in a metal chair with her arms and legs handcuffed. Her mouth was bleeding. Ah, yes. She had been kicked in the face trying to scramble after her helpless servant. Directly over her head was a blinding, bright light bulb. The rest of the room was dark and empty save for one man.

Integra blinked disbelieving at him.

He was a skinny little man, wearing plain black dress pants, a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a half-knotted tie. He had crooked black-rimmed glasses, giving him a weak or geeky appearance. Integra scowled at him. He looked like a janitor or an IT technician.

Integra shook her head. She must be dreaming or drugged. This couldn't be real.

The nerdy man plucked a pen light from his pocket and shined it in Integra's eyes. "Are you experiencing any loss of vision?"

"Fuck you!" Integra spat.

The man paused, leaning over Integra. He directed the light away from her face so he could look into her eyes. "We don't need _physically _healthy subjects, just genetically healthy ones. If you're going to be difficult, we can rip your jaw out and it won't impact the experiment. Understand?"

Integra just stared at the man.

He shined the light back in her eyes. "Any vision loss?"

"No."

He clicked the light off. "Your blood test and neurological exam checked out. You're clean. You can start right away." He tucked the pen into his pocket and turned around and walked into the dark. "I'll get you some Neosporin for that scratch."

Integra stuggled impotently against the chair. "Who are you? What do you want? Where are Alucard and Seras!"

_To be continued…_


End file.
